The Wheel 5.2

[maatn]

Stephen Menendian has written a lot of excellent articles on how to use Gifts Ungiven in somewhat similar lists.
Be sure to check out this one: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/18317_So_Many_Insane_Plays_How_To_Use_Gifts_Ungiven_In_Vintage_Tezzeret.html

This one might also be useful: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/16270_So_Many_Insane_Plays_The_Perfect_Storm.html

Gifts Ungiven

Gifts Ungiven is one of the most skill-intensive cards in the deck since it involves the greatest number of decisions in a single card at a single moment in time. Unfortunately, there is no standard “Gifts Package” in a deck like this. Gifts Ungiven piles should be tailored to the conditions on the board and the cards in your hand. For example, a Gifs Ungiven preceding a Yawgmoth’s Will may need to be mana intensive, finding Cabal Ritual, Dark Ritual, Black Lotus, and Mana Crypt.

In general, the idea is to get two good cards in your hand. A mid-game Gifts Ungiven might find: Tinker, Demonic Tutor, Necropotence, and Black Lotus. In the finals of the Vintage Championship, Paul Mastriano played Gifts Ungiven for Phyrexian Negator, Necropotence, Demonic Tutor, and Ancestral Recall. Jimmy gave him Ancestral Recall and Phyrexian Negator. I would be hesitant to include Yawgmoth’s Will in a Gifts pile, since you will almost never be given it, and it is card you will likely want to play post-Gifts.

[magic geek]

I am beginning to believe I should be playing Gifts, and a Snapcaster.
Sure don't want to.

It seems kinda similar to Sensei's Divining Top.
The card is NO FUN.
To Play, to Play against, to watch and to judge.

The snapcaster also seems kinda like a mechant scroll.
Its sometimes a 3 cost Ancestral Recall.
And sometimes it's a counterspell, and sometimes a Timewalk.

But.. well. Fact or Fiction is enjoyable to cast.  

This deck is not about enjoyment, or creativity.
It is about winning. oh well.

[magic geek]

Updated...

+1 Snapcaster
+1 Gifts ungiven

-1 Fact or fiction
-1 Misdirection



Current speculaction....
Looking pretty hard at
-1 Control Magic
+1 Jace MS
But I am not convinced

Also ...
+1 Mishras Factory
-1 Something

[magic geek]

Stephen Menendian has written a lot of excellent articles on how to use Gifts Ungiven in somewhat similar lists.
Be sure to check out this one: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/18317_So_Many_Insane_Plays_How_To_Use_Gifts_Ungiven_In_Vintage_Tezzeret.html

This one might also be useful: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/16270_So_Many_Insane_Plays_The_Perfect_Storm.html

Thanks.
After reading that he doesn't generally go for the win, but for cards that will supply the win soon...that helps.

I think that sums up why I was playing fact-or-fiction.
Part of this deck is just how HARD it is. If I get rattled and lose because I got the Gifts wrong, it hurts me for the next game.
I am getting to the point where I am making the right decisions. Mostly.
I am still making errors. But that is what this deck is about.
This deck is so wrong that it even allows massive play errors , and just recovers.
Then you cast Balance and win. It is just stupid like that.

The worst I made was in the semifinal.
I cast an ancestral on my first turn, not his.   ....and discarded twice 
I still got lucky and won.
This deck is so wrong.

Think I might read some more stuff by him... Thanks again.


A big difference between me and some others is my lack of Zero cost artifacts.
Fully four less than "normal". 3 mox and a Crypt.
Often it helps, lots, against Chalice for Zero especially. 
Artifact Hatred doesn't seem effective against me either.... But I am slower.

I often rattle those greedy decks by wasting their fetched land, and strangling them with colour screw.
I went back and looked at all of the example hands being used by Gifts. Every one of them gets knocked sideways by a wasteland.

[magic geek]

Played 13 games against a solid Doomsday /Lab Maniac combo deck.

It seemed pretty solid.
But the wheel won 8, and lost 5.

I saw Gifts in one hand.
He thoughtseized it, which is actually a pretty strong vote in Gifts favour.

The Snapcaster cast an Ancestral, but didn't do much else.
Seemed OK. too.

The Crucible is looking shakey.

[magic geek]

I just won a tiny tournament.  
(8 man, 5 proxies...And $1 more per entry for every proxie above 5.... but no proxies for me  )  

I am on an outrageous streak with this deck !

Played Fact or Fiction instead on Gifts, purely because I had not sleep enough.  

The crucible just wasn't bullshit enough.
Replaced the Crucible with another Spell Pierce. Worked good.
Wastelands seem effective enough against so many greedy decks.

I even beat good Mud, 5-0.... The Wheel is much stronger now.
The spell pierces dont work so good against MUD, but Porcelain legionnaire is a house.
3 in the board were EXCELLENT. (since there was a hole because the Spell Pierce went in)

Mystic Tutor is getting sided out rather a lot.

The other opponents had pretty reasonable type 1 decks too.
I had an opponent mull to 5, and cast reanimate on this ridiculous 5 power Blue Legend, turn 1.
(he draws 7 cards per turn, I have a hand size 0f ZERO. seemed good.)

[magic geek]

I have bitten the bullet and put in a Jace.    no more control Magic shenangigans.
And I have put in gifts over Fact.

And then I went 5 vs 7 against a ridiculous Elf combo deck....

My sideboard really doesn't undertsand that deck at all.
Maybe the Engineered Plagues should make a come back...

Still, no one else had taken a game off him for a LONG TIME, and he had a whole bunch of proxies, so maybe I just shouldn't bother...

[xxxxxx1]

Any more on this deck? Very interested in the idea and enjoying watching your developments.

[magic geek]

Played against a Blue/Black 4xBob + vault deck. Tier 1, strong.

I won 7 , he won 9.
(A more regular, or maybe just better player could have won at least another 3 of the games I lost.)
Both decks are obviously just bollocks, and obviously hard to play right...But the Wheel is just HARDER.

I like his deck and what he was doing with it.
The extra moxen and Manacrypt do help the ridiculous explosive draws.
And the fact he had no off colour spells really helped his consistency.
Of the 16 games I pushed him into colour problems only the once.

I was not aggressively mulliganing enough against his deck.
Having an OK hand is easily enough to beat most decks, but that level of quality in both player and deck is MUCH harder than most.

Jace was a complete disappointment. I used him as FoW fuel, and that was about it.
There was a game where he had TWO Bobs on board, and I looked at the Jace and just wanted it to be Control Magic.
I can see how in his deck Jace is the better card, but in mine I am really not so sure. I think the difference is the extra artifact mana, they allow Jace to come out faster and be active much faster. The wastelands and strip mine were still useful, but not quite as interfering as I would have hoped.

Gifts didn't win any games either.   Not that it got cast much....

Balance was excellent.
Mind twist was OK.

Threads of Disloyalty or Engineered Plague are looking good for the Side Board....

[magic geek]

Played another tiny tournament. (5 card proxy)
All 3 opponents had real black lotus. Tiny does not mean weak.
I think 4 of us ended on 2 wins and a loss. Equal first really aint a win like that.


I lost the first round to the U/B 4xBob guy I butted heads with last post. The Wheel gave me the chance to win, but I did not take it. I Think He played it right. I know I did not.

There really isnt an easy way to summarise long Type 1 games.
He cast Ancestral Recall twice in the first game and twice in the second game.
I cast Ancestral Recall twice in the first and once in the second. 7 times in 2 games! They were those sort of games.

I should have waited till EOT to Hurkyls that Sphinx off his Tinker. I just didn't realise he had both the off color moxes and a Lotus, so he just hard cast it. D'oh. I thought I had the first game, and attacked a Bob into a Snapcaster, then my active library just found land and got balanced to zero cards, but I did get the Sphinx off the table, for the second time. Then He Yawgmoth'ed and it all went downhill.


Jace for him worked fine, but, Jace really doesn't seem right for the wheel. I had removed Jace before the tournament. Seems like a good call.
I also removed the 3rd Spell Pierce.
Replacements were Meditate and Muddle the Mixture.

I added a single Threads of Disloyalty and an Engineered Plague to the board.
I didn't cast, or see any of them for the day, except, i think i cast Muddle.


Next up was some Noble H/Fish action.
There was an odd turn 4(?) where One permanent was in play, my enormous, invisible robot.
Tinker does seem the signle most obviously stupid spell ever made.
And the 2nd game was kinda similar.

We play a 3rd where his turn 2 Thada just crushed me.




Round 3 was against the shopkeep playing Oath.
I went first and played a land.
He played a blue mox, and i spell pierced it.
He played a red mox, an F-Orchard & cast an oath of druids....
He had a particularly neat trick where he gets a big black demon that comes into play with a demonic tutor effect, which gets a timewalk, which means the Oath gets to go again, which gets the Timewalk again coz it got put back, and so on.

Game 2 I made some bad play errors, but the Wheel just rolled over him. My double counter stopped his double counter so i didn't play that bad, but it so could have been a lot better.

Game 3 i wastelanded & stripmined & ground him out. Seal of cleansing was good, especially the second time.



Jace should not be in The Wheel.
Quite possibly Gifts should not be in MY The Wheel.
Not sure about Muddle & Meditate.

Cards that got sideboarded out...Mind Twist, Gifts, 2xSpell pierce, Muddle, a Wasteland, a preordain, mystic tutor, hurkyls,

f'ken Gifts just laughs at me. Used it as FoW Fuel, and then needed it.
The Wheel is THE hardest deck I have EVER built.
So many options, so many plays, so many possible outcomes.

[Ten-Ten]

Thank you for the update, I really enjoy reading your progress and development with this deck 

Have you tried multiple Fact or Fiction or Impulse instead of Gifts?

[magic geek]

Thank you.
I genuinely appreciate it.

Lots of people get seriously hacked off with how and what I write....But not here.
I seriously appreciate the space to noodle around and contemplate my own navel.

Why this deck got moved to "Creative" is beyond me.
Mind Twist & Balance are hardly "Creative".   

[magic geek]

Multiple Fact-or-Fiction just does not seem right, especially since I am contemplating IF there should be one at all.
Currently I am trying out Meditate in that slot.
For excellent level players I am fairly sure that Gifts is the right call.

Impulse is an extremely strong card, but it is not right for me.
A deck with the full set of Mox & Crypt would use Impulse better.

If I was to add more of this style of card, Preordain is what I would go for.
I just don't have the spare mana lying around, & preordain is very similar in function, and amount of cards viewed.
Mostly the Impulse effect is better, and being an instant is also better. BUT. The Wheel does not have that many counters that require mana at the end of their turn. It is mostly the 2 mana compared to 1 mana cost that really confirms it though.
Turn 1 Preordain, go. Is an OK turn. Obviously it aint great, but it aint bad either.
And on the play a fine turn two is a wasteland and another Blue cantrip.
Impulse does not fit into that.

[magic geek]

Win-Win-Win - ID    (Real world stuff).

Thanks to Aloyisous for letting me ID the final and clear out.
(He did beat me last time we squared up, He of the U/B Bob-athon)

But, I think that means I won, again.
Seems to be happening a lot with this particular deck.

Mind Twist outright won a game.
Balance is WAY strong too.

I played Fact-or Fiction main, purely because It is more Fun and Enjoyable to play when distracted.
The Seal of Cleansing was good.
The Threads of Disloyalty were OK, same with Control Magic.

Engineered plague was OK on Wizards (Bob, Snappy, Lab Maniac.....And would have been good against spirits from Forbidden Orchard)
Teferi's Responce won a game. (made a ghost quarter just disappear ... & draw two cards)
Meditate is currently floating out to the board, and may disappear.

Beat White Trash.. (tough)
Beat Lab Maniac
Beat Forbidden Orchard/Oath


Funny when they called time and I was powering through turns , and killed him on the 2nd of MY 5 turns of overtime.

[magic geek]

Just won the Vintage at GP Melbourne.  

Play of the day was Control Magic on Marit Lage (20/20 flyers anyone?)



The deck is AWESOME.
If I was a better player, I would have won more games.
My worst play was just idiotic.
He tapped a strip mine for mana, put it thru his Karn, and killed my seat of the synod.
I let it happen while holding Teferi's Response, instead of kill Karn, draw cards, untap, win.  IDIOT


Above, I have said This deck is hard.
You, dear reader, just don't understand.   .....   Brain Melting.




Dear Admin,
How many tournaments do I need to win for this brutal, ridiculous deck to go back to the Competitive Forum?

[Ten-Ten]

Congrats on the win!
do you have an updated list?

[magic geek]

The Wheel 5.4

1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Ponder
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Time Walk
1x Tinker
1x Inky Leviathan
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Control Magic
1x Hurkyls Recall
4x Force of Will
2x Spell Pierce
1x Tezzeret
3x Preordain
2x Dark confidant
1x Mind Twist
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Balance
1x Sensei's Divinig Top
1x Time Vault
1x Voltaic Key

 
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Jet
1x Mana Vault
1x Sol Ring
1x Library of Alexandria
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
1x Mishra's Factory
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Seat of the Synod
3x Polluted Delta
3x Flooded Strand
4x Underground Sea
2x Tundra
1x Island

1x Muddle the Mixture
1x Snapcaster Mage


Sideboard
1x Spell Pierce
1x Hurkyls Recall
1x Energy Flux
2x Planar Void
1x Lose Hope
1x Mana Drain
1x Teferi's Response
1x Seal of Cleansing
4x Porcelain Legionnaire
1x Threads of Disloyalty
1x Engineered plague


The Wheel is complete Bollocks.
Sideboarding is the hardest bit. What to take out...?
Mind Twist, Muddle, a wasteland, Yawgies, a Dark C, a preordain, 2xSpell pierce, Hurkyls, Control M, Fact-o-F & Mystical tutor are 12 good places to start thinking.

I manually cast a turn 2 Inky !

And then there was the game Karn becoming a 0/8 made Tinker for Inky look decidedly BAD!

Losing with 2 porcelain Legionaires in play was a tad disappointing, but he did play outrageously well, and win the coin toss so the Mana crypt didn't kill him. Stupid Karn. missed the Teferi's response play, so fair enough too I spoze. The Porcelain legionaires still seem worth it, and did work.

Currently I am concerned about dredge, Yixlid Jailer can't be nature's claimed, maybe....

E plague on Elf or Wizard can win games. (Illusion just dont seem enough against dredge)
Lose hope works fine on enemy Bob's, or a nobleH/elf/swarmer.
Threads of Disloyalty is to take over Bob, or something in a swarm deck.

Rest of board should be obvious.

[magic geek]

Fact or fiction may be better as Gifts Ungiven.
But not in my hands, not at the moment anyway.

Spell Pierce is bad against Mud, and dredge.
One make everything too expensive, one doesn't cast spells that can be countered.

Maybe I should play a peacekeeper...?

[Daenyth]

Some comments:

Which tezz do you play?
Why inkwell over something else? Hurkyl's recall is still common
You need to improve your dredge package. Start with 4 leyline of the void and 2 yixlid jailer.
Darkblast is miles better than lose hope.
How has control magic been for you? I feel like some of the decks that you want the effect against the most have the best answers to it. Fish has qasali pridemage, and vs mud it's 2UU

[rmn]

Mostly I just want to say that I love your deck, and I hope you keep us posted on it.

I agree with Lose Hope over Darkblast, dredging in this deck is so... fair.

Have you ever tried adding Cunning Wish?  Having maindeck access to Teferi's Response, Mana Drain, Hurkyl's, etc. seems like it has potential.  If you have tried it, I'm curious to know how well it worked.

[magic geek]

Cheers RMN. 

Cunning Wish is not something I had considered.
Interesting idea though.
I think it would require some significant rewiring of the board. Certainly a clever suggestion, but I think it might just be too expensive.
Using it to get a counter is going to get too expensive, same with T-response which wants to be used as a 2 cost. And maybe Hurkyl's too. Even so the versatility of Cunning Wish is pretty huge. hmmm. Chain of Vapor and lots of other instants would suddenly be much more tempting. But, that is not really this deck. The Wheel just doesn't reliably have that level of disposable mana. I can certainly see it being good when fuelled with Mana crypt and Mana drain mana. Sure turn 2 manual Inky Leviathans have happened, but I would not want to rely on it.

The reason I play Inky is because I have fought against it.
Being able to point at almost all of the other robots makes them weaker against lots of generic cards. Almost everyone plays something that can point at a creature.
Jace for instance does not want to see, or not see, an Inky.
Same with swords, Icy manipulator, gilded drake, duplicant, maze of ith or Vedalken shackles.
Not that anyone is going to play with any one of those, but they are examples of the types of things that people do actually play. Who knows what the opponent actually is play in type one?
And oddly enough Islandwalk matters.
Sure Hurkyls Recall is and should be present in the room, I am playing it so obviously I rate the card, but all of the available enormous robots are going to go home when Hurkyls gets cast so it is not like that is a reason to play one over any of the other choices. Actually, it is a reason to run Sundering Titan, but apart from that Path/StP target, Inky is the best robot to have in your hand. This is because casting Inky is a fairly standard and easy thing to do. 9 mana is a whole lot easier to reach than 11, or 12. Sure sundering only costs 8, but it dont trample, or Islandwalk and it constantly would get pointed at. The only time I have had problems with Inky being able to kill is with that Stupid Karn being able to become a 0/8, and maybe sometimes when a 2 turn kill was needed in a race, which is extremely rare.



Lose hope really is the better choice over Darkblast, for me anyway.
Killing the opening Bop/NobH/LLelf/Bob is the important bit for both of them.
The moment I cast Lose Hope I get to scry. Scry is a good trick. It is actually pretty close to a bonus preordain.

Being able to pick up and recast DB might be useful some time in the future, but it isn't right now.
Of course, being able to do it over and over, or twice at the start of a turn to kill a 2/2 is good.... But I don't seem to need to do that.
Whereas if they only cast a single Bob for the game, Lose Hope is just better.



" You need to improve your dredge package. Start with 4 leyline of the void and 2 yixlid jailer."
Um. No.
This is not your standard Tezz build.
When they drop a Bazzar, a standard Tezz build is on a real timeline.
Mine kills it with a Wasteland.
One of the real advantages mine has is it's ability to not mulligan. It just doesn't.
Planar void can be searched for and cast on turn 2, or 3. Leyline just dont work like that. I do not really mind if my graveyard is gone. Losing Yawgies is a downer, but Planar void seems to cripple Dredge almost as effectively. Playing F-o-F over Gifts is a small advantage to planar too. Sure if I had a 50 card sideboard there would be those 6 cards, but currently the sideboard is full. One Yixlid jailer does seem tempting.
I am a little wary of Yixlid-J.
I saw a game at the GP where the Oath player had a 2/3rds chance of winning against the 3 bloodghasts and others. Instead he flipped a Yixlid Jailer, and died.
This is where I am thinking maybe the peacekeeper would be cool.
I am not sure Dredge actually has a way to win.



I am playing "Tezzeret the Seeker"
To me there really only seems like one choice, but, OK sure.
Just to make sure it is obvious I looked up the other Tezz, and that aint gunna happen.


Control Magic has been ace.
eg 20/20 flyer or Blightsteel Collossus or Sphinx-o-t-S-W ... or just Bob at the low end.
Sure Jace can deal with those problems too, but Jace just solves the problem, he does not cause them a solve it or die question.
When they have 3 or more creatures, Control magic is just better than Jace too.
I fully understand it is not to everyone's tastes, and if everyone agreed with me, I would be wrong. (Which is an odd concept in itself). But right now Control Magic has been a complete Bomb.
And I can always pitch it to Force, or sideboard it out.
When you Oath of Druids out some ridiculous Bullshit, I am not meant to just take it.

"I feel like some of the decks that you want the (control Magic) effect against the most have the best answers to it. Fish has qasali pridemage, and vs mud it's 2UU"
Sure.
And when you tap out I will still take your Q-mage.
Or you cast your Q-mage once I have controlled your other creature. OK, I spent 4 mana, you spent 3 on your solution. it might still be working better than Jace/bounce in that situation. And it can still be used to Force of will.
Against Mud it can cost more than 2UU, but once you have their creature, what are they gunna do? I now have a win condition, or they need a THIRD creature. Swarming decks HATE conrol magic. Same with tinker, well, unless they get Inky Leviathan...

And the real target for Control Magic is Bob.

[magic geek]

I checked out some other dredge decks.
They always have some way of dealing with the Peacekeeper, or my library. 

Yixlid seems like a good singleton.

Graf Cage looks interesting too.

[BC]

I haven't been following this thread closely, so I might have missed it, but what's up with only running 2 Moxes and no Mana Crypt?  Seems bad, especially since you're playing Tolarian Academy.  Also, what do you tutor for with Muddle the Mixture?

[magic geek]

I haven't been following this thread closely, so I might have missed it,...  Seems bad,

Translation...
I have not read this thread, or played the deck, or even read the decklist, ...but I have some opinions, and it Seems bad,
 

Depends on your point of view.
When my opponent casts a turn 1 chalice for zero on the play, does the extra 3xMoxen & Manacrypt seems such a good idea?

On turn 1, how about...
Lodestone golem or Thorn or Trinisphere or Kataki or Null Rod?

Or Turn 2 Karn or titania's Song or March of the machines or Seeds of innocence or Aether Flux......

Or Turn 3 Mox Monkey, Kill it, Kill it, Kill it?

The list gets pretty long pretty quickly, and who know what madness they will cast?
The above has happened to me. Sometimes pretty regularly.
Shops are BAD for Moxen especially.
And getting killed by your own Mana Crypt when you are having infinite turns is REALLY embarrassing.

Moxen ARE strong, Crypt too. (Arguing otherwise is just stupid) but this deck is not about that sort of abuse.
This deck has SO many abusive plays that it does not need to get lucky, drop the hand and do something silly on turn 1.
It is incredibly reliable that it will do something abusive every game, but it does not have to be turn 1.
Wasteland is what I am playing instead of the Moxen. Killing Bazzars and Shops can regularly win me games.
Say they play a shop and cast a Trinisphere.
And on my turn I kill the Shop. Big smiles over here. The Moxen you reckon I should be playing cant be cost, the wasteland I am playing may have just won the game. It has certainly happened that way as I lock them out with their own cards.

Look at the example hands being given in the above articles on why to play Gifts over Fact-o-F, now insert a wasteland into any of them and they are all suddenly WRECKED. For a whole lotta decks having lots of non blue mana is just not that useful if you aint got no Blue. That is a primary reason I am not playing Manadrains. If I cannot guarantee being able to cast them, they just aint that good, and playing the Moxen and crypt just dont help cast Blue spells.
This deck is not about killing goldfish. If you want to kill goldfish, play the Moxen.
This deck does not get colour screwed by drawing the wrong off colour moxen, and wrong off colour spells. It is about consistency. That is also why it does not mulligan, even though it is playing all sorts of strange one offs.
It is also about getting up the opponents nose.

Tolarian Academy regularly taps for 2 mana, and sometimes more. That is enough. Sure, some decks use it more abusively, but I do not need to. I do not need bucketloads of mana on a regular basis, sure it is nice sometimes, but again, this deck is consistent. The weakness that the extra moxen add is just not worth it. When I wasteland THEIR Tolarian Academy, I can often just win becaue their counterspells (well, ...Manadrains) just dont work no more.


And, If you can't figure out what the Muddle gets, you really haven't looked at the decklist.
Stuff Muddle can get...
Time Vault   (...the primary win condition)
Time Walk
Balance   (...the primary reset button)
& Dark Confidant
& Snapcaster, (cast the Ancestral in the bin....)

All of that seems rather good to me.
Or you can just counterspell a Manadrain, Force of will, Timewalk, Ancestral, Spell Pierce....

[magic geek]

Currently the only decks that really concern me are ..
Tier One Tezz
Tier One Dredge
& Elf combo

I have game against all of them, but I have not played enough to really know.

I think I currently beat dredge, but it is close. (Popular around here)
I think I go even with Elf Combo. (Beat it twice in tourneys, but lost out in testing...just)

I beat White Trash two tournies ago. I do not know if that was a fluke, but I think I have a much better chance against it than the Bob & Top show.
Tezz (The Bob & Top Show) is the only deck that I think currently beats The Wheel. And it aint by much.


Any of the above deck can, will and do take games from The Wheel. Mud too especially preboard.
They are ALL quality type One decks.
And the Wheel is proud to make them ALL feel very nervous.

[BC]

First of all, I have read the decklist and started playing around with this deck, which is why I am giving this thread enough attention to actually respond with questions.  If you don't actually want any feedback on your list, but just want people to tell you how awesome it is, then best of luck.  If not, then read on...

So you don't play artifact mana because scenarios exist that can nullify artifact mana.  Interesting.  I think that most seasoned Vintage players will tell you that the overall benefit you get from playing all 5 Moxes, Lotus, +others will far outweigh the games where you get blown out by a Trinisphere or something.  As I mentioned before, Tolarian Academy is not nearly as good without full artifact power.  Tinker, Mind Twist, Balance, and Yawgmoth's Will are also significantly worse without artifact mana, as is pretty much any spell that costs more than 1 cmc.  You may occasionally have a bad game against Shops.  It happens.  If you're playing against Titania's Song, March of the Machines, Seeds of Innocence, or Aether Flux, then you are playing against a casual deck and you should beat them anyway.

As for the Muddle the Mixture targets, I recognize that there are cards in your deck that cost 2, but I don't see anything on that list that is good enough to warrant running an overcosted and limited tutor/counterspell.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I am not a huge fan of the deck, but it is a throwback to the old keeper decks, which is kind of cool in itself.  I never cared for Keeper decks either, though I acknowledge they were good, so that tells you my perspective.

Muddle is NOT a bad card by any means.  It's never dead.  Vs decks with sorceries and instants, it's a hard counter...not bad.  Against decks like fish or shops where it can't be used as a counter, it is a 3 mana DT that is not effected by spheres.

Now I do see where Mana Drain is just more versatile of a counter and can be busted with mind twist, etc.  I would actually recommend drains.  Back in the day in oath I used to run muddles - they got oath or TV...but I also ran 4 Force/4 drain first.

Moxen are not essential to success, but I think it is really a wash.  if you run null rod effects, you leave it out, sometimes.  But you might actually enjoy at least the pearl.  It helps you cast balance or your seal of cleansing, but can accelerate out your spells.  Yes, you can get hosed by the situations you mention, or you might get that 1 extra fast mana to hurkyl's their board under spheres the turn before they bury you.  I'd look into using all the colored mana that you use in moxen.  You have a lot of colorless eating spells.  An extra mox is extra turn 1 confidants, etc...so it's not without merit to look into.  Crypt I think is unnecessary in this deck.  It's a gamble card in any deck that doesn't aim to kill extremely quickly.

I might also consider a 3rd bob (or 4) for the reason above - turn 1 bob is back breaking vs any matchup.

[magic geek]

Wow BC !
You have actually built this? Thats astounding.
As you may have noticed I am more than happy just typing away and treating this mostly as a diary. I do not expect anyone else to ever actually build anything I have made....

If you are playing type one against other random decks, then yes, by all means play all 5 mox and the rest of them. But against other type One decks, they really hurt on a fairly regular basis. Of the big list of great Zero & 1 cost artifacts, Red & Green Mox are the obvious last choice. White has come and gone. Being able to cast Balance was lovely, but replacing it with the second Tundra just worked better. Originally I switched to a scrubland, but not tapping for Blue cost me a match, so it became a Tundra.

Having an intentionally lower amount of artifacts has won me games.
Having my opponents cast a turn one Null Rod off a Mox was Hilarious, especially since I didn't have any artifacts....

I think it is fair to say that I am NOT most Vintage players.
Shops & Bazzars are big around here.
So is Chalice for Zero, and all manner of outlandish massed artifact hatred.
Seeds of Innocence is a very real card that I counterspelled last tourney.

Yes, “Tinker, Mind Twist, Balance, and Yawgmoth's Will are also significantly worse without artifact mana,”
This is true.
But they are so stupidly overpowered that a slightly lower power version is actually still quite good enough. And the increase in power level of those impressive cards is simply not worth the weakness that it introduces to the deck. Suddenly all of those cards listed above become effective, and simply are not effective against me.

“You may occasionally have a bad game against Shops”

It aint just tranny sphere.
Dealing with Massed artifact hatred is a standard part of Type one.
I am playing Hurkyls Recall for a reason.


“If you're playing against Titania's Song, March of the Machines, Seeds of Innocence, or Aether Flux, then you are playing against a casual deck and you should beat them anyway.”

(:  …. You do realise I am PLAYING Aether Flux?
I spoze I must be a casual player.


“As for the Muddle the Mixture targets, I recognize that there are cards in your deck that cost 2, but I don't see anything on that list that is good enough to warrant running an overcosted and limited tutor/counterspell.”

It gets the primary win condition, in a way that cannot be counterspelled.
It is card 59-60, and it seems to work pretty well.




The White Dragon …While I can see the similarity to the old Keeper Decks, it was not built from that base. (And there are way worse things to be compared with than one of the most successful decks ever made)


“Muddle is NOT a bad card by any means.  It's never dead.  Vs decks with sorceries and instants, it's a hard counter...not bad.  Against decks like fish or shops where it can't be used as a counter, it is a 3 mana DT that is not effected by spheres.”

Yup. That is pretty well why I am playing it.


I have tried drains base, but it just didn't mesh properly.
Consistency issues. Getting Two Blue was just too unreliable on turn 2.
Spell Pierce has been working better.

And the Pearl is tempting, but again, I prefer the Tundra.

“You have a lot of colorless eating spells.“
Not really.


“  Crypt I think is unnecessary in this deck.  It's a gamble card in any deck that doesn't aim to kill extremely quickly.”
I agree.



“I might also consider a 3rd bob (or 4) for the reason above - turn 1 bob is back breaking vs any matchup.”

Um. sort of. Bob is dangerous. Bob gets me dead too often for me to want the third base. Against any sort of aggression, he can be an embarrassing death sentence.
Burn, Zoo & white Trash do exist.
(but, I have been thinking pretty hard about the 3rd and 4th Bob against the Bob & Top Show, but they would be in the sideboard.)


I spoze what I am really pointing out is that this deck is SO stupidly overpowered that the weaknesses introduced by adding the extra artifacts seems unneeded. Allowing some spells to suddenly become effective seems bad. Sure those extra artifacts make broken draws truely obscene, but they also lose the game sometimes. Without those extra weaknesses, those potentially problem cards are not effective.
(Trygon Predator, Ancient Grudge, Shattering Spree, Rack & Ruin, Shatterstorm, Pulverise....)
When their are no other cards to worry about, focussing on my own decks potential problems does work.
Death by self inflicted damage is very real. Not having the Manacrypt & Bob 3+4 reduces that admittedly small risk. But when you are the only person having turns, ANY risk seems silly.
This deck wins most of the games it plays, therefore, focussing on those losses seems the right place to look.

[BC]

(:  …. You do realise I am PLAYING Aether Flux?
I spoze I must be a casual player.

After some investigation I think we are both talking about ENERGY Flux, which is a legitimate Vintage card and definitely worth playing.  There is no such card as Aether Flux.

We will have to agree to disagree on some of the other stuff.

[magic geek]

Aether Flux

Aether Flux

After some investigation I think we are both talking about ENERGY Flux, which is a legitimate Vintage card and definitely worth playing.  There is no such card as Aether Flux.

Thanks for investigating that one word error we both made.

If you don't actually want any feedback on your list, but just want people to tell you how awesome it is, then best of luck.  If not, then read on...

I really do not need you or anyone else to tell me how awesome this deck is.
The Wheel has won many tournaments. (as shown above)

As for the Muddle the Mixture targets, I recognize that there are cards in your deck that cost 2, but I don't see anything on that list that is good enough to warrant running an overcosted and limited tutor/counterspell.

OK.

You are claiming Time Vault isn't “good enough”.
I think Time Vault is “good enough”.
I am quite OK disagreeing with you.

We will have to agree to disagree on some of the other stuff.

Cool Bananas.